The Arrangement
by Caz251
Summary: Leon Vance has an arrangement with one of his staff from LA, Eric Beale. Colleagues with benefits.
Written for darkhavens prompt Any, any/any, when the bruises started to fade (s)he demanded new ones at fic-promptly.

Pairing is inspired by needtoknow400's fic Old Habits, I have had Vance/Eric stuck in my head ever since.

Their relationship, if you could call it that, was based purely on sex; animalistic sex. There was no illusion between them that it was anything else, it wasn't even a friends with benefits situation as they weren't even friends. They were colleagues and they had an arrangement, one that was secret and needed to stay that way as it could ruin both of them if it was ever found out.

Leon wasn't even really sure how their arrangement had begun, he would probably put it down as a reaction to a stressful day. He had an early meeting that day with SecNav that had taken longer than it was supposed to, he then got caught in traffic on the way to the office. Gibbs' team and Gibbs in particular seemed to be doing their best to drive him crazy and the systems in MTAC were being updated, bringing MTAC up to the same standard as OSP in Los Angeles. His day had been headache inducing and he was glad that it was over, he took the elevator to get out of the building quicker and he had been joined by Eric who had flown in that morning from LA to train the MTAC techs on how to use the updated systems, only instead of getting out quicker the lift seemed to grind to a halt.

They had pressed the alarm button on the elevator and help was on its way to fix the problem and get them out, but for a time they were stuck. Eric began to talk about anything he could, he was jumping topics randomly which wasn't helping Leon's headache, but he soon realised that he was trying to distract himself. It appeared that the man who seemed to spend the majority of his working life in one room was claustrophobic. Realising this Leon had tried to engage him in a conversation in order to take his mind off their situation and to cease his random babbling.

They had spoken about their plans for the evening, Eric was heading to a club to find someone to take back to his hotel, and Leon was heading home to a pile of paperwork, and they had spoken a bit about the MTAC updates. Leon quickly found that they had ran out of things to talk about, he didn't really know the other man well, so he had no idea what would be common ground to talk about. Eric appeared to have had the same thoughts and the talking had ceased and silence had filled the elevator, well silence except for the sound of Eric pacing the small space.

Leon wasn't sure who had started things between them, not really, he had grabbed Eric by the wrist and had pulled him to a stop, hoping to try and stop him from pacing. He didn't know if it had been him or if it had been who had initiated that first kiss between them, he did know that it had been him who had pushed Eric up against the elevator wall and had stolen any breath that had been in his lungs.

When they were rescued Leon had offered Eric a lift to his hotel, knowing that the other man didn't have a car in DC and would have been getting a cab that would have left by now, not waiting for a man who didn't turn up. Eric had agreed and had spent the whole trip in silence, rubbing at his wrists which had started to bruise. Leon was wondering if he was regretting what happened and if this was going to end with a report being put in about him sexually harassing his staff. Eric invited him up to his room though and Leon went with him, feeling as if they should clear the air between them and talk.

They had talked, but that had been much later in the earlier hours of the morning when they were both sated and the bruises on Eric's wrists were turning a deep purple. They had agreed that this was just sex, it was a good way of relieving stress and neither of them would be adverse to it happening again. Leon didn't expect that it would though, but at least he knew that he wasn't going to have HR knocking at his door about the situation.

Leon had to fly out to LA not long after that and he had been expecting the situation to be awkward between them, but Eric was nothing if not professional something Leon had been glad of. Eric had found him later though, showing him the fading marks on his wrists and asking that Leon replace the marks, but somewhere a little less obvious this time. It had been his way of asking if they were going to continue their situation.

They had gone to Leon's hotel that time and he had greatly enjoyed the night, leaving bruises on Eric's shoulders from holding him against the bed and the shower wall. They had formalised their arrangement that night in words, neither of them intended to drop anything for the arrangement, but if they were in the same city with the same urges why not take care of them together. Eric had turned up in DC a few times, and Vance had been in LA for meetings a few times as well, and their arrangement was working.

He watched as Eric redressed, some new bruises forming on hips, where Leon had held tightly as he had bent the other man over his desk. Leon did wonder about the marks he was leaving on the other man, but he didn't seem to mind, if fact it seemed to Leon that as one set of marks was fading Eric was demanding that he leave another set on him. Once he was put together once more Eric nodded at him and left the room.

Leon took a few moments to pull himself together before opening the window a bit and making sure that the air conditioning was on. He had a meeting with Gibbs soon, he didn't want the room to smell of sex after a meeting with LA's technical officer, Gibbs would be onto them, and this was something that Leon really didn't want Gibbs to know.


End file.
